تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 10.16: ذكر الحوضين العظيمين بخارجها

Outside Dihlī is the great reservoir named after Sultan Shams al-Dīn Lalmish, from which the people of the city drink. It is near its muṣallā, and its water is collected from rainwater. Its length is about two miles and its breadth half its length. Its western side, toward the muṣallā, is built of stone made in the form of platforms, one above another, and below each platform are steps by which one descends to the water, and beside each platform is a stone dome containing seats for those strolling and sightseeing. In the middle of the reservoir is a great dome of carved stone, built in two storeys; when the water in the reservoir is high there is no way to reach it except by boat, and when the water is low people go in to it. Inside it is a mosque, and most of the time there reside

in it the faqīrs who have devoted themselves to God and put their trust in Him. When the water dries up at the sides of this reservoir, sugar cane, cucumbers, snake-cucumbers and green and yellow melons are sown there; these [melons] are very sweet and small in size.

Between Dihlī and Dār al-Khilāfa is the Ḥawḍ al-Khāṣṣ, which is larger than the reservoir of Sultan Shams al-Dīn. Around its sides are about forty domes, and the musicians live around it. Their quarter is called Ṭarab Ābād, and they have a market there, one of the greatest markets, and a congregational mosque and many other mosques besides.

I was told that the singing women who live there perform the tarāwīḥ prayers in the month of Ramaḍān in those mosques together, with imāms leading them, and their number is great; and so too the singing men. I saw the musicians at the wedding of the amīr Sayf al-Dīn Ghadā ibn Muhannā: each of them had a prayer mat under his knee, and when he heard the call to prayer he rose, performed his ablutions and prayed.